You have to try God Of War's immersive mode

Eight years on from the Pantheon-toppling finale of God Of War 3 and Sony's Santa Monica Studio hit is back – albeit in a new guise. Having travelled to the Nordic land of Midgard, protagonist Kratos is doing his best to temper the rage with which he murdered his own father, Zeus, and the series’ paternal dynamics have been flipped. The rippled Spartan demigod is no longer the vengeful son. Instead, he’s grappling with the challenges of fatherhood – laying low in the frosty foothills with his own boy, Atreus, hiding from the horrors of his ruinous past.

Review

More impressive than God Of War’s thematic reframing is its newfound restraint, which makes this modernised reboot’s infrequent pangs of rage all the more impactful, heightening the tensions of its central familial quandary: how do you prevent your child from repeating your own mistakes?

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It’s new ground for Santa Monica and the game's burly lead. Gone are the ultra-wide landscape shots; the one-note script; the rolling conveyer of titanic boss fights; the gratuitous and frequently uncomfortable level of nudity and violence. This 2018 envisioning is raw yet balanced, with human characters that are truly fallible. Playing out entirely in the foreground, it wants you to feel every one of its godly punches.

It’s bravura game-making – a single-shot production that extends across 30-or-more hours, boasting some peerless direction and wonderful performances. The cinematic decision to keep everything in one continuous shot, the camera constantly in motion, means you never leave Kratos’ side. It’s a choice that makes for the most personal God Of War to date, perhaps the most personal game of its kind. So while its initial narrative focus gets somewhat lost in a padded final third – which dilly-dallies toward a genuinely tantalising conclusion – the overwhelming majority of this lengthy quest is one of the PlayStation 4’s best.

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It’s a reboot that flexes and contorts the franchise’s DNA to suit a modern mould, lifting generously but gracefully from Sony's other first-party flagships. You can see echoes of Uncharted’s platforming and puzzling, Horizon Zero Dawn’s open-world exploration and the parental themes of The Last Of Us throughout, but these individual components slot together superbly well in their new arrangement. The game’s structure funnels you through linear segments before tempting you with enormous open areas. With each new repass this incredible byzantine world shifts and reshapes, revealing new activities and secrets made accessible with the new tools you’ve picked up along the way. All of this you’re free to pursue pretty much at whim, with Atreus encouraging you to venture off the beaten path, even as Kratos resists distraction.

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Of course, it has its own ideas, too. God Of War has always been about the primal connection between steel and sinew, and Santa Monica hasn’t forgotten that. However, with the shift in direction comes a very different tool of war – Leviathan. This ornate magical axe channels Midgard’s frost to decimate enemies, gifting Kratos a far more dynamic sense of physicality. It’s a nimble weapon in the Spartan’s deft hands, and there’s weight and speed to each of your combat abilities, all of which are upgradeable, and each of which you’ll want to experiment with in depth.

Even your shield, which automatically spirals out from your wrist-guard at the touch of a button, can also be used as a battering ram. Level it up and it can hurl enemies back with a wonderfully gratifying sonic blast, sending them careering into the billowing snow. It’s there that Leviathan’s range is essential. Throw it and it will wedge itself in whatever you happen to aim at – alive or environmental – at which point your fists take over, again employing both light and heavy attacks to do the utmost damage. Tap a button and Leviathan zooms back through the air, rending anything it hits along the way. It’s reacquainted with your palm with a fabulous thud, sparking with icy blue particles; a masterful physical entity that sits alongside Super Mario Odyssey’s Cappy in its nonstop morisheness.

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While Kratos is all too familiar with combat, it’s entirely new to Atreus, who begins your journey as an innocent boy dealing with the loss of his mother and the emotional unavailability of his father. Progressing through the world, delving into some truly amazing places, the boy's strengths develop, particularly with languages, which allows you to translate the runic symbols left scattered across the woods, forests, caves and vaults you explore. But Atreus’ vulnerability never truly disappears – even as he becomes more accustomed to the brutality of the world, transforming into a useful tool in combat in due process, he remains perhaps Kratos’ only weakness.

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In stark contrast to any God Of War before it, this quest is more about staying alive rather than unforgiving bloodshed. The violence, of which there’s a lot, is woven into Midgard’s frozen fabric. Its threats require fighting, maiming and killing, but Sony once again reframes this to better fit the new tone. Rather than the sole aggressor perpetrating hateful acts upon enemies both deserving and non, the Kratos of 2018 understands the difference between murder and survival – the violence happens to him rather than just because of him. He is no doubt still a frighteningly imposing force – an early silhouetted shot of the Spartan harking back to the days of dread he wrought upon the Greek gods – but we also see him concerned, even fearful, before this journey’s end.

The game isn't without its larger than life moments, either. These massive, visually arresting spectacles are less frequent now, but are yet another demonstration of this more considered creative team. There are just a handful of major boss fights but each one marks a purposeful punctuation in the plot. From the first encounter with the game’s central antagonist, to a superlative sequence with a stone hammer, to an electrified aerial battle on a rocky mountainside; the impact of God Of War’s most breathtaking surprises shouldn’t be defanged with written details, but are accentuated further because of the low key stretches that counterpoint them.

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It’s a game that plays into its own hands a little too often – a sparse variety of mid-tier boss battles and environmental puzzles pop up too regularly – but if there’s one major misstep it’s a late-game story beat that eschews the excellent character depth the game works so hard to develop. The result is a jarring derailment that reduces its emotional authenticity, and while it only lasts an hour so, it does enough to offset the game’s narrative course. The moments within and after this revelation are heavy handed, rushed storytelling – the script failing to effectively land the overarching implications of what it just revealed. It's not until the game's excellent and somber finale that it picks up its own pieces

Thankfully, simple sights as instinctive as unexplored crevices or unopened doors are enough to keep the rest of this adventure soaring; its richly detailed Nordic setting giving everything to a series that was much in need of a refresh. The game is a remarkable artistic achievement, more so than any PlayStation exclusive before it, with the most minute flourishes giving it life – foliage on trees, the gentle ruffle of Kratos’ beard in the wind; snow and ice billowing gently across a mountaintop; the photorealistic lighting and fabulous use of colour. Every aspect – from its unrivalled looks to its haunting score – is marvellous to behold, and it’s unquestionably the most beautiful looking game ever made. But that’s of little surprise – God Of War has always been the PlayStation’s visual tour de force. Yet now, Sony's most chiseled face has finally found a heart to match.

Immersive mode

While functional, the on-screen prompts, compasses and level-up information are an unnecessary blemish on an otherwise flawless product.

I’ve played the entirety of my second play-through of God Of War using the game’s “Immersive Mode” setting, which strips away all of the extraneous visual details plastered onto the screen and leaves nothing between you and the meat of the game. There’s no warning markers when enemies are about to hit you from behind; no location markers, health bars or item pick-up notifications, either. It makes playing the game a much harder challenge, but also sets you free from the restraints of a video game – the stuff that constantly reminds you you’re playing something – and instead lets you fully sink into the fantastical world.

The impact of Immersive Mode is heightened by the game’s cinematic delivery, which employs a single unbroken shot for the entirety of the game. The lack of any heads-up display makes full use of the screen space at all times, enriching the phenomenal visual feats of Kratos’ latest quest. I found new areas in my second playthrough and have been scouring every new place for little hidden nooks and crannies, all because I wasn’t just compelled to follow the on-screen compass to whatever my next objective was.

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Rather than just make combat tougher, it truly enhances fights, too. God Of War isn’t an easy game by any means – not in the early stages, anyway, while Kratos’ skills are at their weakest and most stripped back – but the lack of any visual cues letting you know when to dodge or block makes it a dance of death at the best of times.

Instead, you need to pay close attention to your son, Atreus, who will shout out potential dangers as he becomes more adept in combat. It’s a brilliant but subtle system that adds dynamism to combat and forces you to listen as well as watch, and you’ll need to become attuned to it to survive. Trolls, undead and dark elves are just a handful of the enemies you’ll come across on the dangerous road from your humble home to the top of the highest peak in the realms, and Immersive Mode makes the struggle to get there even more rewarding.

Even subtle prompts are missed out, like the ability to see when your special attacks have recharged and are available to use again, but using Immersive Mode simply forces you to become one with your arsenal. You’ll start to subconsciously count the time between using a special move, and thus become even better in combat by knowing when you’re set to unleash an incredible frost attack once again.

I was always going to go through God Of War a second time. It achieves so much in its lengthy runtime that it was difficult to remember it all in detail with just one playthrough. And yet, I didn’t think playing it a second time would be as uniquely rewarding and enjoyable as this. If you’re yet to play the game for the first time, Immersive Mode is absolutely the way to go. It might make those early hours a little tougher, but the experience you get as a result of jumping that hurdle is entirely worthwhile.